Admissions Blog

When I moved here 8 months ago, a big part of my decision of where to live had to do with the commute into the East Baltimore/Medical Campus.

Personally, I knew I wanted to live in the suburbs and chose north of the outer loop (695) in the Timonium/Lutherville area. I love my choice and getting to campus is easy. I get on 83 South and my satellite parking lot is two blocks away from my exit. I then take a free shuttle from the parking lot to campus. Most mornings it takes me about 25 minutes to get to work by 7:30 a.m. However, if I’m running late or there is an accident, the commute can take up to an hour. (I’d like to note that I usually miss the majority of rush hour traffic and I don’t experience too many accidents.)

I’ve learned that the west side of Baltimore on 695 and 795 tend to have a lot of traffic during rush hour—at least that is what my radio station’s traffic reports imply. On the south and east side, 95 is another highway that gets backed up very quickly. However, if you want a suburb on the west side, Owings Mills is the start of the metro subway line and it runs straight to Johns Hopkins Hospital, which is across the street from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A lot of students choose to live near the Homewood Campus in Charles Village. JHU runs a free shuttle regularly between the Homewood and Johns Hopkins Medical Institute (two blocks from the main Bloomberg building). That shuttle also stops at the Peabody Institute, which is in Mt. Vernon, another popular place for students. If you are looking for more of a city experience, then Canton, Fell’s Point, Harbor East, and the Inner Harbor might be the place for you. These “city” neighborhoods are easily assessable by bike, public transit and Baltimore’s free bus, the Charm City Circulator.

For those of you who want to walk to campus every day, there are a few apartment options surrounding our campus. New apartment buildings have been added recently and there are several townhouse options in most directions from campus.

Hopefully this insight into how to get from future neighborhoods to campus will help you in deciding where to live in Baltimore. Some helpful websites for finding places to live are as follows:

New students, let me introduce you to your new friend: the Johns Hopkins Shuttle.

Johns Hopkins University and Medicine provide a number of buses and vans traveling a variety of routes. They’re a great resource for students, staff and faculty. Best of all, they’re FREE to anyone with a Johns Hopkins ID badge!

The JHMI-Homewood Shuttle is probably the most popular. It’s a large, city-wide bus with both “Express” and “Local” routes between JHMI (the medical campus where JHSPH resides) and the JHU Homewood campus. The Local Bus stops at Peabody, as well as Baltimore’s Penn Station.

Lots of students and staff choose to live along the shuttle route. Others take the shuttle to Penn station, where they catch Amtrak, MARC, or Light Rail to BWI airport, Washington, New York, etc.

I suppose you could say, the shuttle isn’t just your friend, it’s your vehicle to other friends – here in Baltimore and around the world!

Are you planning a two-wheel commute today? Lots of folks are. And it’s not just today. It seems more and more people are commuting by bike every day.

Prospective students often ask if Baltimore is bike-friendly. I’m afraid I can’t speak from experience. I live a fair distance outside the city and haven’t tried it. But a number of our current students ride their bikes to campus and use the sheltered bike racks located in the deans’ garage under the Wolfe Street Building (accessible from Washington Street).

An unofficial poll of these students confirms that Baltimore is better than many cities at making room for our two-wheeled friends. And there are plans for making it even better!